Aunt Jane by Jennette Lee

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Title: Aunt Jane

Author: Jennette Lee

Release Date: August 2, 2013 [EBook #43380]

Language: English

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AUNT JANE

AUNT JANE

BY

JENNETTE LEE

AUTHOR OF "UNCLE WILLIAM,"

"THE WOMAN IN THE ALCOVE," ETC.

NEW YORK

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

1915

Copyright, 1915, by

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

TO

GERALD STANLEY LEE

CONTENTS

I
II
III
IV
V
VI
VII
VIII
IX
X
XI
XII
XIII
XIV
XV
XVI
XVII
XVIII
XIX
XX
XXI
XXII
XXIII
XXIV
XXV
XXVI
XXVII
XXVIII
XXIX
XXX
XXXI
XXXII
XXXIII
XXXIV
XXXV
XXXVI
XXXVII
XXXVIII
XXXIX

XL
XLI
XLII
XLIII

I

"Aunt Jane, what are you thinking of?" The young man turned his head a little on the pillow to look inquiringly toward
the door.
It was the door of Room 24 leading into the Men's Ward. Aunt Jane had been standing there for five minutes, gazing
intently before her into space. The serene face framed in the white muslin cap had a rapt, waiting look. It reminded the
young man of a German madonna that he had run across last summer in an old gallery corner, whose face had haunted
him. "Aunt Jane, what are you thinking about?" he repeated gently.
She turned slowly toward him, the placid look breaking into twinkles. "I was thinking I'd better turn Mr. Ketchell's

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mattress the other end to, and put a bolster under the upper end. It kind of sags."
For a moment the young man on the pillow looked a little bewildered. Then he lay back and laughed till the iron
bedstead rang and the men in the ward pricked up their ears and smiled in sympathy.
Aunt Jane smiled too, stepping leisurely toward him.
"There, there," she said as she adjusted the sheet and lowered his pillow a trifle: "I don't know as I'd laugh any more
about that. 'Tisn't so very funny to change a mattress the other end to."
He raised a hand and wiped the laughter from either eye. "But you looked as if you were thinking of angels and
cherubim and things, Aunt Jane."
She nodded placidly. "I generally do," she responded, "but that doesn't hinder knowing about mattresses and bolsters....
I wouldn't laugh any more for a day or two if I was you. The bandages might get loose." She slipped a careless hand
along his forehead, gathered up a cup and plate from the stand beside him, and slid plumply from the room.
His eyes followed her through the door, down the long ward as she stopped here and there for a word or a question.
Once she raised her hand sternly at a bed and sniffed. The cap strings bristled fiercely.
"He's catching it," muttered the young man from the private room. "I knew he would. You can't keep a baccy-pouch in
the same room with Aunt Jane." He sighed a little and glanced, without turning his head, toward the window where the
spring clouds sailed and filled with swelling whiteness. A breath of freshness stole in softly. On the sill was a bowl of
pansies. He lay looking at them idly. His lids fluttered and closed—and lifted again and fell shut.
Out in the ward the men were laughing and talking. Sanderson, robbed of his baccy-pouch, was sullen and resentful and
the men were chaffing him. Aunt Jane drifted through the swing-door at the end of the ward. She placed the cup and
plate on a dumb-waiter and crossed the hall to the Women's Ward. A nurse met her as she came in the door. "Mrs.
Crosby is worse. Temperature a hundred and four," she said in a low voice.
Aunt Jane nodded. She went slowly down the ward. White faces on the pillows greeted her and followed her. Aunt
Jane beamed on them. She stopped beside a young girl and bent over to speak to her. The girl's face lighted. It lost its
fretted look. Aunt Jane had told her that she was to have a chop for her dinner if she was a good girl, and that there
was a robin out in the apple-tree. She turned her gaunt eyes toward the window. Her face listened. Aunt Jane went
on.... A nurse coming in handed her a slip of paper. She glanced at it and tucked it into her dress. It was a telephone
message from Dr. Carmon, asking to have the operating-room ready for an appendicitis case in ten minutes.
The girl with the gaunt eyes called to her:
"Aunt Jane!" The voice was weak and impatient.
Aunt Jane turned slowly back. She stood by the bed, looking down with a smile.
The girl thrust an impatient hand under her cheek: "Can I hear him in here?" she demanded.
Aunt Jane glanced toward the window.
"The robin? Like enough, if he flies this way. I'll go out and chase him 'round by and by when I get time."
The girl laughed—a low, pleased laugh. Aunt Jane's tone had drawn a picture for her: The robin, the flying cap strings in
swift pursuit, and all outdoors—birds and trees and sky. She nestled her face on her hand and smiled quietly. "I'm going
to be good," she said.
Aunt Jane looked at her with a severe twinkle. "Yes, you'll be good—till next time," she remarked.
The nurse by the door waited, impatient. Aunt Jane came across the room.
"Get 15 ready.... Find the new nurse," she said. "Send her to the operating-room.... Send Henry to the ambulance
door.... Tell Miss Staunton to have things hot, and put out the new ether cones. It wants fresh carbolic and plenty of
sponges."
The nurse sped swiftly away.
Aunt Jane looked peacefully around. She gave one or two instructions to the ward nurse, talked a moment with one of
the patients, smiled a kind of general benediction on the beds and faces and sun-lit room, and went quietly out.... At the
door of the operating-room she paused a moment and gave a slow, comfortable glance about. She changed the position
of a stand and rearranged the ether cones.
The next minute she was standing at the side door greeting Dr. Carmon. The ambulance was at the door.
"It's a bad case," he said. "Waited too long."
"Woman, I suppose," said Aunt Jane. She was watching the men as they put the trestles in place.
He looked at her. "How did you know?"
"They're 'most always the ones to wait. They stand the pain better'n men." She stepped to one side with a quiet glance
at the litter as the men bore it past. "She'll come through," she said as they followed it up the low stairway.
"I wish I felt as sure," responded Dr. Carmon.
Aunt Jane glanced back. A man was standing at the door, his eyes following them. She looked inquiringly toward the

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doctor.
"Her husband," he said. "He's going to wait."
Aunt Jane spoke a word to a nurse who was coming down the stairs, with a motion of her hand toward the man waiting
below.
The little procession entered the operating-room, and the door was shut.

II

It was a current belief that the Berkeley House of Mercy belonged to Aunt Jane; and I am not at all sure that Aunt Jane
did not think so herself—at times.
The hospital had been endowed by a rich patient in gratitude for recovery from a painful disease. She had wished to
reward the surgeon who had cured her. And when Dr. Carmon had refused to accept anything beyond the very
generous fee he had charged for the operation, she had built the hospital—over which he was to have absolute control.
There was a nominal board of directors, and other physicians might bring their patients there. But Dr. Carmon was to
be in control.
The surgeon had not cared for a fortune. Dr. Carmon was not married; he had no wife and children to tie him down to a
fortune. But a hospital equipped to his fingers' ends was a different matter and he had accepted it gratefully.
Dr. Carmon had not always found it easy to get on with the surgical staff of his old hospital; partly perhaps, as Aunt
Jane always maintained, because he was "too fond of having his own way"; and partly because he was of the type that
must break ground. There were things that Dr. Carmon saw and wanted to do. And there was always a flock of
malcontents at hand to peck at him if he did them.
He accepted the Berkeley House of Mercy with a sense of relief and with the understanding that he was to be in
absolute control. And he in turn had installed Aunt Jane as matron of the hospital—not with the understanding that she
was to be in absolute control, but as being, on the whole, the most sensible woman of his acquaintance.
The result had not been altogether what Dr. Carmon had foreseen. Gradually he had awakened to the fact that the
hospital and everything connected with it was under the absolute control—not of Dr. Frederic Carmon, but of Aunt
Jane Holbrook. Each member of the white-capped corps of nurses looked to her for direction; and the cook and the
man who ran the furnace refused to take orders from any one else. It was no unusual sight for the serene, white-framed
face, with its crisp strings, to appear among the pipes and elbows of the furnace-room and leave behind it a whiff of
common sense and a series of hints on the running of the hot-water boiler. Even Dr. Carmon himself never brought a
patient to the House of Mercy without asking humble and solicitous permission of Aunt Jane. It was not known that she
had ever refused him, pointblank. But she sometimes protested with a shrewd twinkle in her eye: "Oh, I can't have that
Miss Enderby here. She's always wanting to have her own way about things!" Then Dr. Carmon would laugh and bring
the patient. Perhaps he gave her a hint beforehand. Perhaps the fame of Aunt Jane's might had reached her. Perhaps it
was the cool, firm fingers.... Whatever the reason, it is safe to say that Miss Enderby did not once have her own way
from the day that she was carried into the wide doors of the House of Mercy, a sick and querulous woman, to the day
when she left it with firm, quick step and, turning back at the door to fall with a sob on Aunt Jane's neck, was met with
a gentle little push and a quick flash from the white-capped face. "There, there, Miss Enderby, you run right along.
There's nothin' upsets folks like sayin' good-by. You come back some day and say it when you're feeling pretty well."

III

Aunt Jane was thinking, as she went along the wide corridor to Room 15, that the new patient was not unlike Miss
Enderby.
It was an hour since the operation and Aunt Jane had been in to see the patient two or three times; as she had stood
looking down at her, the resemblance to Miss Enderby had come to her mind. There was the same inflexible tightening
of the lips and the same contracted look of the high, level brows.
A nurse coming down the corridor stopped respectfully.
"Dr. Carmon has finished his visits," she said. "He asks me to say he is in your office—when you are ready."
Aunt Jane nodded absently. She went on to Room 15 and looked in at the door. The patient lay with closed eyes, a
half-querulous expression on the high brows, and the corners of her lips sharply drawn. Aunt Jane crossed the floor
lightly and bent to listen to the breathing from the tense lips.
The eyes opened slowly. "It's you!" said the woman.
"Comfortable?" asked Aunt Jane. She ran her hand along the querulous forehead and straightened the clothes a little.

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"You'll feel better pretty soon now."
"Stay with me," said the woman sharply.
Aunt Jane shook her head: "I'll be back by and by. You lie still and be good. That's the way to get well."
She drifted from the room and the woman's eyes closed slowly. Something of the fretted look had left her face.
Aunt Jane stepped out into the wide, sun-lit corridor and moved serenely on. Her tall figure and plump back had a
comfortable look as she went.
One of the men in the ward had said that Aunt Jane went on casters; and it was the Irishman in the bed next him who
had retorted: "It's wings that you mean—two little wings to the feet of her—or however could she get along, at all,
without putting foot to the floor!"
However she managed it, Aunt Jane came and went noiselessly; and when she chose, she could move from one end of
the corridor to the other as swiftly as if indeed there had been "two little wings to the feet of her."
She was not hurrying now. She stopped at one or two doors for a glance, gave directions to a nurse who passed with a
tray, and went leisurely on to the office.
Over by the window, Dr. Carmon, his gloves in his hand, was standing with his back to the room, waiting.
Aunt Jane glanced at the back and sat down. "Did you want to see me?" she inquired pleasantly.
He wheeled about. "I have been waiting five minutes to see you," he said stiffly.
"The man in Number 20 is coming along first-rate," replied Aunt Jane. "I never saw a better first intention."
The doctor glared at her. His face cleared a little. "He is doing well."
"I want you to put Miss Wildman on the case," he added.
"She's put down to go on at eleven," responded Aunt Jane.
"Humph!" He drew out his note-book and looked at it. "I suppose you knew I'd want her."
"I thought she'd better go on," said Aunt Jane serenely.
"And Miss Canfield needs to go off—for a good rest. I shall need her on Tuesday. There are two cases"—he consulted
his notes—"a Mrs. Pelton—she'll go into the ward—after a few days."
"Poor," said Aunt Jane.
"Yes. And Herman G. Medfield——"
"He's not poor," interposed Aunt Jane. "He could give us a new wing for contagion when he gets well."
The doctor scowled a little. Perhaps it was the unconscious "us." Perhaps he was thinking that Herman G. Medfield had
scant chance to give the new wing for contagion.... And a sudden sense that a great deal depended on him and that he
was very tired had perhaps come over the surgeon.
Aunt Jane touched the bell by her table. "You sit down, Dr. Carmon," she said quietly.
Dr. Carmon picked up his hat. "I have to go," he replied brusquely.
"You sit down," said Aunt Jane.
He seated himself with a half smile. When Aunt Jane chose to make you like what she was doing...!
The white-coated boy who came, took an order for meat broth and sandwiches and returned with them promptly.
"You're tired out," said Aunt Jane, as she arranged the dishes on the swing-leaf to the desk. "Up all night, I suppose?"
"No." The doctor nibbled at a sandwich. Then he broke off a generous piece and swallowed it and drank a little of the
hot broth.
She watched him placidly.
He was a short, dark man with a dark mustache that managed, somehow, at once to bristle and to droop. His clothes
were shabby and creased with little folds and wrinkles across the ample front, and he sat well forward in his chair to eat
the sandwiches.
There was something a little grotesque about him perhaps.
But to Aunt Jane's absent-minded gaze, it may be, there was nothing grotesque in the short, stout figure, eating its
sandwiches.... She had seen it too many times roused to fierce struggle, holding death at arm's length and fighting, inch
by inch, for a life that was slipping away. To her Dr. Carmon was not so much a man, as a mighty gripping force that
did things when you needed him.
"I suppose I was hungry," he said.
He picked up the last crumb of sandwich and smiled at her.
Aunt Jane nodded. "You needed something to eat."
"And some one to tell me to eat it," he replied. And with the words he was gone.

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The next minute Aunt Jane, sitting in the office, heard the warning toot of his motor as it turned the corner of the next
street and was off for the day's work.

IV

In the reception-room a man was waiting. He was thick-set, with dark hair and eyes and an obstinate chin. He looked
up with a doubtful flash as Aunt Jane came in.
"How is she?" he demanded. He had sprung to his feet.
Aunt Jane descended into a creaking chair and folded her hands quietly. "Sit down, Mr. Dalton," she said; "I'm going to
tell you all about it."
The words seemed to promise limitless details.
He sat down, chafing a little and looking at her eagerly.
She smiled on him. "Hard work waiting, isn't it?" she said.
His face broke a little.
"Has she come out of it?"
Aunt Jane nodded. "Yes, she's got through." She rocked a little in the big chair. "She's standing it pretty well,
considering," she added after a pause.
"Will she get well?" The question burst at her.
She looked up at him slowly—at the dark eyes and obstinate chin. "I don't know," she said. She waited a minute. "I
suppose you'd rather know the truth," she asked.
"Yes—yes."
"I thought so." The muslin strings nodded. "When my husband died they didn't let us know how sick he was. I've always
thought we might have saved him—between us—if we'd known. They wanted to spare my feelings." She looked at him
inquiringly.
"Yes." He waited a little less impatiently. The world was a big place. Everybody died.... Would Edith die?... He looked
at her imploringly.
She returned the look with one full of gentleness. "I don't see how she's going to live," she said slowly. The face under
its white cap took on a trance-like look. The eyes were fixed on something unseen. She drew a quick breath.... "But I
guess she will," she said with a tremulous laugh.
The man's lips parted.
She looked at him again. "If I were you, Mr. Dalton, I'd go home and feel pretty big and strong and well, and I'd hope
pretty hard."
He looked at her, bewildered.
She was on her feet. She ran her eye over his face and person. "I'd wear the cleanest, freshest clothes I could get, and
I'd look so 'twould do her good just to set eyes on me."
He flushed under the two days' growth of beard and ran his hand awkwardly across his chin. "But they won't let me see
her?" he said.
"Well, I don't know," responded Aunt Jane. "It'll do her good—whether she sees you or not," she added energetically.
He rose with a smile, holding out his hand. "I believe you're right," he said. "It gives me something to do, anyway, and
that's worth a good deal."
"Yes, it's something to do," she responded, "and I don't suppose any of us knows just what cures folks."
"Could I see her to-morrow, perhaps?" he asked, watching her face.
She shook her head emphatically. "Not till I think best," she replied with decision.
His face fell.
"And not then," she said, "unless you're feeling pretty well and strong and happy."
He gave a little abrupt laugh. "Oh, you've fixed that all right. I shan't sigh—not once—in a dark room—with the lights
out."
Aunt Jane smiled serenely. "That's good." At the door she paused a moment. "I wouldn't reckon too much on seeing
her," she said. "I shan't let any one see her till she asks. She won't pay much attention for three-four days yet."
A peculiar look crossed the man's dark face. "That's all right," he said. "I can wait."

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Outside the door he lifted his face a little to the fresh breeze. His eyes stared absently at the drifting sky. "Now, how did
she know Edith wouldn't want to see me?" he said softly: "how did she find that out?"

V

Aunt Jane bent her head and listened to the heavy breathing. Then she spoke softly to the nurse in charge, who listened
obediently and went away. It was not an unusual thing for Aunt Jane to assume control of a case at any moment.
Perhaps she was most likely to do this about three or four o'clock in the morning when all the hospital was asleep and a
chill had crept into the air. The nurse in charge of a critical case would look up to find Aunt Jane standing beside her,
fresh from a cold bath, with a smile on her big, restful face and a whispered command on her lips that sent the tired
nurse to bed with a clear conscience.
The patients that Aunt Jane assumed in this peremptory fashion always recovered. Perhaps they would have recovered
in any case. This is one of the things that no one knows. It may be noted, however, in passing, that the patients
themselves as they came into the new day, holding fast to Aunt Jane's hand, cherished a belief that had it not been for
that firm, plump hand, the new day would not have dawned for them.... They had no strength and no will of their own.
But through the cold and the darkness, something held them; and when the spirit came creeping back with the morning,
the first thing that their eyes rested on was Aunt Jane's face.
The woman's eyes opened suddenly. They looked for a moment, dull and unseeing, into Aunt Jane's. Then they fell shut.
Aunt Jane's fingers noted the pulse and passed once or twice across the high, fretted brow. Slowly a look of sleep
passed over the face and the strained lines relaxed. Aunt Jane, watching it, gave a nod of satisfaction. Out in the
orchard the robin sang his twilight song, slow and cool and liquid, with long pauses between, and the dusk crept into the
white room, touching it.
Aunt Jane sat passive, waiting, the eyes under her white cap glowing with a still, deep look. All the threads of life and
death in the hospital gathered up and centred in the quiet figure sitting there. Not a pulse in the great building beat, or
flickered and went out, that Aunt Jane did not know it. But she sat waiting while the twilight deepened, a look of
restfulness in her big face. Now and then she crooned to herself, half humming the lines of some hymn and falling silent
again, watching the sleeper's breath.
The night nurse paused outside the door, and a little rush of gaslight flickered in. Aunt Jane rose and closed the door
and shifted a screen noiselessly to the foot of the bed. The long night had settled down for its sleep. And Edith Dalton's
soul was keeping watch with death. Slowly it sank back into the grim hold ... only a spark left, with Aunt Jane keeping
guard over it.... So the night passed and the day, and another night and another day ... and the third day dawned. Edith
Dalton would have said, as the spark glowed higher and blazed a little and lighted her soul, and her eyes rested on Aunt
Jane's face, that the figure sitting there had not left her side for three days. Down through the deepest waters, where
death lulled her and heaven waited, she had felt a touch on her soul, holding her, drawing her steadily back to life; and
now she opened her eyes and they rested on Aunt Jane's face and smiled a little. Then the lids fluttered together again
and sleep came to the face, natural and sweet.
Aunt Jane's eyes grew dark beneath the white cap. She touched a bell and gave the case over to the day nurse that
came. "She will be all right now," she said. She spoke in the low, even voice that was not a whisper and not a tone.
"Give her plenty of water. She has been very thirsty. But there is no fever. Don't call me unless there is a change.... Then
send at once." She departed on her rounds.
No one would have guessed, as the fresh, stout figure moved in and out among the wards, that she had not slept for
two nights. There was a tradition that Aunt Jane never slept and that she was never tired. Dr. Carmon laughed at the
tradition and said that Aunt Jane slept as much as any one, more than most people, in fact, only she did it with her eyes
open—that it was only a superstition that made people think they must shut their eyes to sleep. The Hindoos had a trick
worth two of that. Aunt Jane knew the trick, and she might tell other folks if she would, and save the world a lot of
trouble.
But Aunt Jane only shook her head, and smiled, and went her way. And when the fight with death came, she went with
each one down into that other world, the world of sleep and faith and unconscious power, on the border-land of death,
where the soul is reborn, and waited there for life. She had no theories about it, and no pride; and if she had now and
then a gentle, imperious scorn of theorists and bunglers, it was only the touch of human nature that made the world love
her.

VI

It was late Monday afternoon that a card was brought to Aunt Jane—a thin, slim bit of card, with correct English
lettering in plain type on it.
Aunt Jane read it and glanced up at Miss Murray who was on door duty for the afternoon.

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"He's in the front room," said the nurse. "And there's a woman—came the same time but separate. I put her in the back
room."
"Tell Miss Crosby and Miss Canfield to be ready to go on duty in Number 5 and Suite A," said Aunt Jane.
She said the last words almost with a sniff. If Aunt Jane had had her way, there would have been no Suite A in the
House of Mercy.
For Suite A was a big, sunny, southeast room, with a sitting-room on one side and a bath on the other—a royal bath,
with overhead shower and side sprays and all the latest words in plumbing and fitting, all the most luxurious and costly
appointments of nickel and marble and tile.
Aunt Jane always went by Suite A with her head a little in the air and her nose a trifle raised. And woe to the man or
woman who occupied Suite A. For a week or ten days he was left severely to the care of nurses and doctors. It was
only after he had experienced to the full what a desolate place a hospital may be, that Aunt Jane condescended to look
in and thaw the atmosphere a little.
It was perhaps her feeling for Suite A that led her to attend to ward patients and occupants of humble rooms before
those of Suite A. "They'll be comfortable enough when they get to their suite," she had been known to say.
So it was the back room that she entered first—with the card in her hand.
A little woman at the side of the room got up quickly. "I came alone," she said. She fluttered a little and held out her
hand nervously as if uncertain what might happen to her in a hospital.
Aunt Jane took it in her plump one and held it a minute. "Sit down."
The woman sat down and looked at her. "John wanted to come. But I told him to stay home," she said.
"Much better," replied Aunt Jane, nodding.
"I told him he'd better kind of make supper for the children. So if they should miss me!" The look was wistful.
Aunt Jane regarded it comfortably.
"All the happier, when you get back home." She had seated herself in a large chair and she rocked a little.
The woman's face relaxed.
She looked about her more happily. "It seems kind of like home, don't it? I didn't think a hospital would be like this—
not just like this. I don't seem to mind being here," she said with a little note of surprise.
"You won't mind it," said Aunt Jane. "You'll like it. Everybody likes it. Maybe you won't want to go away."
The woman smiled faintly. "I guess I shall be ready to go—when the time comes," she added slowly.... "There's one
thing I wanted to ask somebody about—it's about paying— How much it will be, you know? I asked the doctor once
—when he said I'd have to come, but he didn't tell me—not really."
"Dr. Carmon doesn't think so much about his pay." There was something almost like pride in Aunt Jane's voice. "You
needn't be afraid he'll overcharge for it."
"It isn't that—only maybe we couldn't pay," said the woman. Her forehead held little wrinkled lines and her face smiled.
"And it don't seem quite right to be done—if we can't pay for it."
Aunt Jane rocked a minute. Her eyes travelled to the door leading to the front room. The door was ajar and through the
crack there was a glimpse of a light overcoat lying carelessly across the chair. It had a silk lining.
Aunt Jane nodded toward it. "There's a man in there——"
"Yes, I know. I saw him. He got here the same time I did—in his motor-car."
"In his motor-car—that's it! Well—" Aunt Jane smiled. "He's going to pay Dr. Carmon—for your operation."
"Why—!" The little woman gasped. "He don't have any reason to pay for me!"
"Well—" Aunt Jane rocked, turning it over and making it up as she went along: "Well— He's rich. He has a plenty—
And he won't be comfortable without." She spoke with conviction.
"But he don't know me," said the woman. "Unless maybe he knows John!" she added thoughtfully.
"That's it," Aunt Jane responded. "Maybe he knows 'John.' Anyway he's going to pay." She touched a bell.
"Well—" The woman looked down at the hands in her lap, the fingers were working in and out. "I'm sure I don't know
how to thank him!" she said. She looked up. Her eyes were full of tears. She brushed a quick hand across them. "I
don't know how!" she said softly.
"You don't need to thank him," replied Aunt Jane. "He won't expect any thanks, I guess."
A nurse stood in the door. Aunt Jane's hand motioned to the woman. "This is Mrs. Pelton. She's going to be in Room 5.
Take good care of her."
The nurse held out her hand with a smile. And the little woman got up. "I've got a bag here somewhere—? That's it—
yes. Thank you! I seem all kind of upset, somehow. I didn't know a hospital would be like this!"

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Aunt Jane watched her with a smile as she went from the room. There was a gentle look in her eyes. Then she got up,
with the card in her hand, and moved toward the front room. She had become serene and austere.
A tall, thin man rose courteously. "I am Dr. Carmon's patient. I understand a room has been reserved for me?" He
looked up.
"There's a room, yes," admitted Aunt Jane.
The man's face waited. There was astonishment and a little amusement under its polite gaze.
Aunt Jane rang the bell.
"Won't you sit down," she indicated a chair.
"Thank you. I prefer to keep standing—while I can." He said it smilingly.
If there was an undertone of appeal for sympathy in the words, Aunt Jane's face ignored it. She turned to the nurse who
entered.
"Show Mr.—?" She consulted the card in her hand with elaborate care. "Mr.—? Medfield, yes, that's it—show Mr.
Medfield to Suite A."
The man bowed and took his coat on his arm. The nurse led the way. And Aunt Jane watched them from the room,
holding the little card in her hand.
A little later when she entered the name on the card in the hospital register, she added something after it in tiny
hieroglyphics that made her smile as she closed the book and put it away on its shelf.

VII

Herman Medfield sat in the spacious sitting-room of Suite A, his paper spread out before him and his breakfast on the
invalid table that had been wheeled up to the window. He had found the table with its tray of coffee and eggs and toast,
an easy chair drawn up beside it, and the morning paper by his plate, ready for him when he came from his comfortable
bath.
He had opened the paper, but not the eggs.... He read a few lines in the paper and glanced down at the table with a
little scowl and pushed it from him.
Dr. Carmon had insisted on his being at the hospital for three or four days before the operation. He wanted to watch
him and control conditions, he had said. It would make his decision easier.
The millionaire sitting in the window frowned a little and drummed with his fingers on the arm of the chair.
He took up the paper and glanced at it again and threw it down.
One of the conditions had been that he should have no cigars. He had understood and agreed to it.
But this morning he was impatient with himself and annoyed with Dr. Carmon. These doctors had no end of theories—
useless theories—that did more harm than good. He should be in no shape for an operation—if he could not keep his
nerve better than this. He really needed a cigar.
He pressed the knob of the electric cord that reached to his chair and took up the paper again.
When the nurse came in, he glanced up and motioned courteously to the table.
"You may take it away, please."
She looked at the untouched food and lifted the tray without comment. At the door she paused, at a word from the
window.
The man had turned over his paper, and he glanced down another column as he said carelessly:
"And—ah—would you be kind enough to telephone to my house for a box of cigars. I seem to have forgotten to bring
any."
The nurse waited the merest fraction of a second. "I will see if they are on your order," she said quietly, and went out.
He lifted his eyes a trifle and returned to his paper.
The nurse closed the two doors of Suite A noiselessly behind her. She went down the corridor, bearing the rejected
tray.
Half-way down the corridor she encountered a plump figure.
Aunt Jane's mild glance rested on the tray. "Anything the matter with it?" she asked.
"He doesn't want it," said the nurse. "He said, 'take it away.'" Her lips smiled, ever so little, as she watched the round
face in its cap.
The cap strings did not exactly bristle; but there was a look of firmness in the plump chin.

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"Take it back," said Aunt Jane. "Tell him it is what was ordered for him. He is to eat it—eat all of it."
She spoke back over her shoulder, half turned away. "I've got a good many things on my hands this morning. I can't be
bothered with fussy folks and notions." She passed on and disappeared in the door of Room 18.
The nurse, with her tray, returned to Suite A. She opened the door softly and went in.
Two minutes later, she emerged, still with her tray—and a high, clear color in her face.
Aunt Jane coming out of Room 18, caught a glimpse of her and stopped.
The nurse shook her head, the color in her cheeks mounting. "He doesn't want it." Her eyes twinkled a little in spite of
the color that flooded up.
Aunt Jane reached out her hands for the tray. She gave a half-impatient click. "More bother'n they worth!" she said.
"Always are in that room!"
She bore the tray before like a charger, and entered Suite A without parley.
Herman Medfield looked up and saw her, and rose instinctively.
Aunt Jane set the tray on the table and pushed the table gently toward him. "Sit down," she said.
He sat down in his chair by the window, looking up at her inquiringly.
"Everything's there," said Aunt Jane. She glanced over the tray. "You're to eat it all—all there is on the tray."
The man laid down his paper and smiled at her quizzically.
"But, madam, I have no appetite," he said courteously.
Aunt Jane regarded him mildly over her spectacles. "Folks that come here don't generally have appetites," she said.
"They come here to get 'em."
Something crossed in the air between them and the millionaire's eyes dropped first. He drew his chair toward the table.
A half smile hovered on Aunt Jane's lips. She took up the coffee-pot and reached to the sugar. "How many lumps?" she
asked pleasantly.
"Two, please," responded Herman Medfield.
She placed them in the cup and poured in cream and filled the cup with coffee. "Looks like good coffee, this morning,"
she said quietly. "You got everything you want?"
"I think so, yes." He looked at the tray with a little more interest and pecked at an egg.
Aunt Jane nodded shrewdly and kindly and went out.
It was only after she had gone that Herman Medfield remembered he had not spoken of the cigars. On the whole, he
decided to wait until to-morrow for his cigar.

VIII

In Room 5 Mrs. John Pelton lay staring at the wall, with quiet face. From a clock-tower came the sound of the striking
of the hour. She counted the strokes—nine o'clock. She wished it were ten and Dr. Carmon had come.... After he
came and things began—the operation was only "things," even in the background of her mind—after Dr. Carmon got
there and things began, it would not be so hard, she thought. It was the waiting part that was hard.
She had had a restless night. There had seemed so many hours; and she had thought of things that she ought to have
done before she left home.... She had forgotten to tell any one about Tommie's milk. He always got upset so easy! She
wondered if Mrs. Colby would know. It had been good in Mrs. Colby to say she would come in and look after the
children a little. But Mamie was really old enough to cook for them.... And she did hope John would be all right—and
not worry about her.... He would be at work at ten—when "things" were going on. That was good!... Mrs. John Pelton
knew that it was work that would carry John over the hard place—work that would take every nerve and thought for
itself. John was a puddler and they were to "run" at ten o'clock—or about ten. He would have his hands full—enough to
think about and not worry—till things were over.... He would come, after work hours, to see how she had got through.
Then she had fallen asleep and dreamed she was slipping down a steep place—down, down, and couldn't stop—and
some one had caught her arm.... And it was the nurse, waking her gently for something. And then she had dozed a little
and wakened and wondered about the children again....
And no one had brought her any breakfast—not even a cup of coffee. "Nothing to eat this morning," the nurse had said,
smiling, when she had plucked up courage to ask for something. The nurse was a nice girl—a good girl, Mrs. Pelton
thought—but hardly older than Mamie, it seemed.
That older woman was so good yesterday! Aunt Jane's look and cap came floating hazily to her; and she slipped a hand
under her cheek and fell asleep, thinking of it.

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The thin face on the pillow, with the hair drawn tightly back and braided in its two small braids, had somehow a heroic
look. There were lines of suffering on the forehead, but the mouth had a touch of something like courage, even in its
sleep—as if it would smile, when the next hard thing was over.
Aunt Jane, who had come in silently and stood looking down at it, called it "the woman look."
"They always have it," she sometimes said—"the real ones have it—kind of as if they knew things would come better—
if just they could hold on—not give up, or make a fuss or anything—just hold on!"
The woman opened her eyes and smiled faintly. "I didn't know as you came to see us—in the rooms," she said.
Aunt Jane nodded. "Yes, I'm 'most everywhere."
She seated herself comfortably and looked about the room. "You've got a good day for your operation," she said. "It's
a good, sunny day."
The woman's startled eyes sought her face. She had been living so alone in the hours of the night, that it seemed strange
to her that any one should speak out loud of—"the operation."
Her lips half opened, to speak, and closed again.
Aunt Jane's glance rested on them and she smiled. "Dreading it?" she asked.
The lips moistened themselves and smiled back. "A little," said the woman.
Aunt Jane's face grew kinder and rounder and beamed on her; and the woman's eyes rested on it.
"You never had one, did you?" said Aunt Jane.
The woman shook her head.
"I thought likely not. Folks don't generally dread things that they've had—not so much as they do those they don't know
anything about.... You won't dread it next time!" She said the words with a slow, encouraging smile.
The woman's face lighted. "I hope there won't be any next time," she replied softly.
"More than likely not. Dr. Carmon does his work pretty thorough." Aunt Jane made a little gesture of approval. "He
does the best he knows how.... You won't mind it a bit, I guess—not half so much as you mind thinking about minding
it."
"Do they carry me out?" asked the woman quickly. All the troubled lines of her face relaxed as she asked the question.
It was the look Aunt Jane had been waiting for. The blessedness of talking out was a therapeutic discovery all Aunt
Jane's own.
Long before scientists had written of the value of spoken expression as a curative method—long before "mental
therapy" was fashionable—Aunt Jane had come to know that "a good talk does folks a lot of good."
"Let them kind of spit it out," she said, "get it off the end of their tongues 'most any way.... It seems to do them a world
of good—and it don't ever hurt me— Seems to kind of slide off me."
She watched the light break in on the tense look, with a little smile, and bent toward the bed.
"No, you don't have to be carried—not unless you want to. I guess you're pretty good and strong; and you've got good
courage. I can see that."
"I'd rather walk," said the woman quickly.
"Yes, I know." Aunt Jane nodded. "I'll go with you—when the time comes. We just go down the hall here a little way—
to the elevator. The operating-room's on the top floor— It's a nice, sunny, big room. And you'll have the ether in the
room next to it. There's a lounge there for you to lie on and a nice comfortable chair for me."
"Shall you go with me?" It was a quick word.
"Yes, I'm going up with you. I go, a good many times, with folks that want me——"
"Yes, I want you."
The small face had grown relaxed; the eyes were clear and waiting. The unbleached nightgown, with the bit of coarse
edging at neck and wrists, seemed a comely garment.
Something had taken place in Room 5, for which scientists have not yet found a name. At ten o'clock Dr. Carmon
would perform his difficult operation on the frail body of Mrs. John Pelton. But the spirit that would go under the knife
was the spirit of Aunt Jane, smiling and saying placidly:
"There, he's just come. That's his car tooting out here. Now we're ready to go."

IX

The room had a sunny stillness. The sun poured in at the window on the whiteness and on the figure lying on the couch

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and on the young doctor bending toward it and adjusting the ether cone with light touch, and on Aunt Jane rocking
placidly in her chair by the couch.
"You won't mind it a mite," said Aunt Jane. Her hand held the thin one in its warm clasp. "You won't mind.... Dr. Doty'll
give it to you, nice. He's about the best one we've got—to give it."
The doctor smiled at the words—a boyish, whimsical smile at flattery. He adjusted the cone a little. "Breathe deep," he
said gently.
There was silence in the room—only a little burring sound somewhere, and the soft creak of Aunt Jane's rockers as
they moved to and fro.
The door of the operating-room stood open. Through the crack Aunt Jane could see a round, stout figure, enveloped
from head to foot in its rubber apron, bending over a tray of instruments. The great arms, bare to the shoulders, the
exposed neck, and round head with short bristling hair, a little bald at the top, gave a curious sense of alert power and
force.
Aunt Jane had never seen a picture of St. George and the Dragon, or of St. Michael. She had scant material for
comparison. But I suspect if she had seen through the open door of the operating-room, either of these saints fastening
on his greaves—whatever greaves may be—and getting ready for the dragon, he would have seemed to her a less
heroic and noble and beautiful figure than the short, square man, bending over his case of instruments and selecting a
particularly sharp and glittering one for use.
The young doctor leaning over the figure on the couch moved a little and lifted his head. "All right," he said quietly. He
nodded toward the door of the operating-room.
A nurse appeared in the doorway.
Aunt Jane pushed back her chair; and the nurse and doctor, at either end, lifted the movable top of the couch by its
handles and carried the light burden easily between them to the open door.
Aunt Jane watched till the door was shut.... Her work began and ended at the door of the operating-room.
Inside that door, Dr. Carmon was supreme. Elsewhere in the hospital Aunt Jane might treat him as a mere man; she
might criticise and advise, and even rebuke the surgeon for whose use the hospital had been built and endowed. But
within the operating-room he was supreme. She allowed patients to enter that door without word or comment, and she
received them back from his hands with a childlike humility that went a long way—it may be—toward reconciling the
surgeon to her rule elsewhere.
"Aunt Jane knows what she knows—and what she doesn't know," Dr. Carmon had been heard to say. And if she
regarded him as a mere man, it is only fair to say that he, in turn, looked upon Aunt Jane as a woman; a mere woman,
perhaps, but remarkably sensible—for a woman.
When the door of the operating-room closed upon her, Aunt Jane stood a minute in the sunny room, looking tranquilly
about. She drew down a shade and returned the rocking-chair to its place and went quietly out.
In the corridor, nurses were coming and going with long, light boxes or tall vases and great handfuls of fragrant
blossoms. The florist's wagon had just come; the corridor was filled with light and movement and the fresh scent of
flowers. Aunt Jane beamed on it all and passed on.
It was one of the pleasantest hours of the day for Aunt Jane. She knew that scrubbing and sweeping and dusting were
done—every inch of the hard floors clean with carbolic and soap, every patient bathed and fed, and the beds freshly
made—everything in order for doctor's visits—and inspection. Through an open door, here and there as she went, she
caught a glimpse of a black-coated shoulder or arm by the side of some bed. Aunt Jane had no fear of adverse criticism
on her hospital or of complaint of her way of doing things.
She moved serenely on.
Then, at a door, she stopped. It was at the far end of the corridor; and through the half-curtained glass of the door she
looked into a great sunny room that extended across the width of the house and opened on one side to the sky and all
outdoors.
It was filled with small cots and beds and cribs.

X

Aunt Jane stood in the doorway a minute, smiling and looking down the long room. Presently from somewhere there
came a piping cry:
"Aunt Jane's come!"
And then another cry—and another: "Aunt Jane's come! Aunt Jane's come!"
No one knew who had started the custom. But some child, some sunny morning, had broken out with it when Aunt

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Jane appeared. And the others had taken it up, as children will; and now it had become a happy part of the day's
routine, as regular as the doctor's visit—or the night nurse's rounds.
"Aunt Jane's come—Aunt Jane's come!"
They broke off from picture-books or blocks, to look up and call out and pass the word along. Then they chanted it
together.... And the newcomer in the ward, a boy lying with bandaged face and eyes half closed, turned a first curious,
questioning look—to find the white-capped face smiling down at him.
At the top of the house, at either end of the long corridor—in Dr. Carmon's operating-room and here in the Children's
Ward—Aunt Jane was not the implacable personage that ruled elsewhere in the hospital.
She beamed down the ward.
A dozen hands reached out to her and she smiled to them and nodded and scolded a little and fussed and drew them all
into a happy sense that this was home—and Aunt Jane a kind of new and glorified mother for little children. All the sick
ones and lame ones, and the bruised ones and bandaged ones were Aunt Jane's children— It did not seem like a
hospital, as one looked down the sunny room, so much as a place where children were gathered in; pinched faces
lighted up—for the first time in life, perhaps—with round, shrewd, loving smiles for Aunt Jane; delicate bandaged faces
looked out at her wistfully and happily; and laughing, rosy ones turned to her.
There were no unhappy ones there. "Children suffer and don't know," was Aunt Jane's comment.
Sometimes as she stood among them she marvelled a little at the quiet unconscious force that ignored pain, or adjusted
itself to twinges. Some child, with a look almost of impatience, would shift a bandaged leg or foot to an easier position,
as it listened to the story she was telling or entered into some game of her contriving.
Sometimes it was a guessing game that was played by the whole ward at once—a kind of twenty questions, shouted at
her as she came in, her hands held carefully behind her.... And, curiously, it was always some little one that guessed
first; some feeble one, just beginning to take notice, that had a glimpse of Aunt Jane's broad back as she turned casually
with a serene unconscious look, or moved a little and revealed the hidden thing behind her.
The whole ward was interested this morning in Jimmie Sullivan's new leg. It was a frame-leg that got in the way when he
walked and tripped him up. He was a little proud of it, but more annoyed, as he came hurrying down the ward to meet
her.
Aunt Jane adjusted her spectacles and looked.
"Well, well!" she said.
Jimmie glanced down at it, a little proud and abashed. "It can't walk," he admitted.
"Want me to carry you?" asked Aunt Jane.
"No, sir!" He slipped a proud hand into hers and stumbled happily and awkwardly along.
Aunt Jane moved toward a bed where a child lay strapped on his back, hands and feet and head held fast, only his eyes
free to turn to her with a smile.
"How's Alec?" said Aunt Jane.
"All right," replied the child. "You going to tell a story?"
"Well—maybe. I don't know as I know any new stories," she said slowly. She considered it.
"Tell an old one," said the boy. "Any old story," he added with a grim smile under the crisscross bandages of the stiff
face.
"Tell about the little red hen," piped a voice from the next bed.
"No—about billy-goat," from across the room.
"Tell about the old lady that runned away," came shrilling close at hand.
Aunt Jane put her hands over her ears. "I can't hear anything," she announced.
Their faces grew still and alert till she should move her hands a tiny crack and they could shout again: "Billy-goat!" "The
little red hen!" "The lady that runned away!"
Jimmie Sullivan, half leaning against her, looked at them reproachfully. "She can't tell nuthin' while you make such a
racket!" he said.
"She likes it!—She likes it!—She don't care!" They returned.
Aunt Jane looked at them and smiled. She took down her hands.
"Let me see—" She glanced from one bed to the other. "I am going to let Edna choose.... She can whisper it to me."
She went to a bed across the room, Jimmie Sullivan's frame-leg clanking happily beside her, and bent to the pillow.
The girl lifted a thin arm and threw it about Aunt Jane's neck to draw her close.
Aunt Jane listened and lifted her head and smiled. "All right," she announced.
The room was so still you could hear a pin drop...